Gate: Frozen Over
by SirStonewall
Summary: A retired police officer and his buddies find something odd out in the back 40. With their sense of adventure peaked, they decide to keep it to themselves, all the while questioning if they should...


**I've had this story sitting around for about a year. I've been hee-hawing around about whether I should upload it or not. I don't expect much outta this story, as I've taken some... creative liberties, and I know my paragraph structure is practically nonexistent, but this story is gonna be different from what I've seen so far however. None of that nationalistic wanking, or at least, it'll be kept to a barely noticeable minimum. Let me know what y'all think.**

* * *

Bad weather.

Not really something new in Montana during the fall, but add in lightning and a _very_ dry summer, and you've got a recipe for one hell of a forest fire.

That's what Matthew was reminded of four weeks ago, when a lightning strike started a fire that burned off more than half of his five thousand acres of property.

Now he surveyed the damage from a privately owned MD-500 helicopter, looking out over the blackened landscape with a scowl.

_{What's even the point of having the property now? I bought it because of the hunting and the scenery, and now all that's gone!} _

_{Yeah it's a damn shame, but it'll grow back. It'll be even better too because you won't have all the thickets.} _Ryan Green, a close friend of Matthew sits at the controls of the helicopter, expertly guiding it up gullies at low altitude.

_{Yeah I suppose you're right… thanks for keeping the fire away from the collection by the way.} _

_{Don't mention it, I know how much you've spent on that collection. It'd be like me crashing my Mosquito. You know how much I love that thing.}_

Matthew nodded and grinned. _{Yeah I know. When are you gonna marry the fuckin' thing?} _

_{Fuck you man, I could say the same for you and your Chieftain.} _

Both Matthew and Ryan are collectors, with the latter collecting aircraft that catch his fancy, and the prior doing the same with tanks and other armored vehicles. The only real difference that sets them apart is the fact that Matthew has the proper licensing to have all the guns on his tanks in working order. Police work hadn't paid out all that well, but the lottery certainly had when he suddenly got lucky.

_{I spent a ton of money on that thing and- woah hold up, circle back around.} _

_{Coming back around. What are we looking for?} _

The helicopter banked left, rising above the canyon walls before it finished the turn.

_{It looks like there might be a cave at the base of the cliff.}_

_{Yeah I see it. You want to come back later on the ground?} _

_{Yeeup, I'll mark it on the GPS.}_

Matthew grabbed a tablet from beside the seat and tapped on the screen repeatedly, marking the position of the cave entrance.

_{I never knew there was a cave there, the foliage was always too thick to move through.}_

_{Who knows, maybe there's gold stashed in it!} _

_{Yeah, not likely.} _

_{Fuckin' buzzkill, a man can dream!}_

Matthew merely rolled his eyes and stowed the tablet. _{Whatever, let's get back to the yard.} _

_{Aight, but I've gotta head back to the field after I drop you off. I've got some corporate bigwigs that want a helicopter to fly 'em around.}_

_{Whatever man, I'll get my sister to go along.}_

* * *

"Give me a fuckin' break!" Matthew yelled angrily when he found a note on the kitchen counter, saying his sister had been called into work to cover for a coworker. He crumpled the note up and tossed it into the trash before walking out the back door, headed for the large garage across the courtyard from his fancy log cabin.

'_To hell with it. I'll go alone then.' _

Walking straight through the small door he passed through his messy office, then walked into the garage housing his mediocre tank collection. Closest to his office was the prize of his collection, a Chieftain Mk 10 that he'd bought for almost four hundred thousand USD at an auction in England.

He grinned at the monstrous machine before walking to the opposite end of the garage, where a large vault door occupied the majority of the wall. Upon entering a 12-digit code, and inserting a keycard into a slot, the vault unlocked with a loud bang that echoed across the garage bay, then the vault door slowly swung open, revealing a large room inside with all sorts of small arms, and another vault door on the far wall.

Matthew grinned and walked to the second vault door, opening it in a similar way to the first, with a slight hiss of air when the door unsealed. Inside were neatly arranged wooden surplus ammunition crates, all labelled along the lids in bold black lettering.

Running a hand through his jet black hair Matthew walked along the aisles until he found a pallet of powder charge cylinders, labeled 'Propellant, 120mm'.

"Matt! Where the fuck you at?!" A voice boomed from outside the vault.

"Ammo room! I'll be out in a sec!" He yelled back, moving four of the containers onto a flatbed cart before stuffing a magazine of the primer charges into his pocket. On his way out he lifted four steel projectiles onto the cart, then slowly pushed the cart out, closing the pair vault doors behind him.

"How you hangin' up here? I'm sorry about your property man." A deep voice rumbled behind him while he locked the outermost vault. Matthew turned around with a smile and extended his hand to the stocky African-American man, who quickly grabbed it and the two exchanged a brief hug.

"Hey Mike. I'm doing alright, just happy my collection's untouched. Thanks for helping with the fire line."

"No problem. I know how much money you've put into this place. Didn't want you to lose the stuff you cared about." Mike chuckled as Matthew started pushing the cart of ammunition across the garage towards the Chieftain. "You heading out to the range?"

"Yeeup. Figured I'd go blow off some steam and check out the damage from the ground."

"Think I could come along? I've never ridden in your Chieftain."

After he slowed the cart to a halt, Matthew scowled at the club bouncer, then grinned and chuckled. "Ah what the fuck, why not. All you had to do was ask."

Mike started grinning from ear to ear nearly instantly and walked over with a bounce in each step. "What do we need to do?"

"I'll handle the ammunition. Go get some coveralls on, then you can help me check fluids." Matthew responded while lifting one of the solid projectiles and climbing onto the front slope, stepping over the bulldozer blade.

Mike quickly walked off to change in the office, leaving Matthew to transfer the heavy 120mm projectiles into the tank by himself. Once the four rounds were loaded, he took a slower tempo with handling the bags of propellant, putting them into the racks before traversing the turret off to one side so the engine compartment could be accessed.

Mike jogged back in a few minutes, having found and donned a pair of tan coveralls that fit his stout build reasonably well.

"All set, my man."

Matthew looked over from the engine deck and waved him up after lifting one of the heavy plates. "C'mon up here. You're stronger than I am, help me open these damn things up."

* * *

_{Yo, is this blue smoke good?} _Mike asked over the intercom while the Chieftain surged down the blackened dirt road, crushing fallen trees into charcoal powder underneath its treads.

_{Yeah it's fine. The multi-fuel engine in this thing will run on damn near anything flammable, just . . . not very well.} _

_{Those words aren't comforting. It's a long ass walk back to the yard!} _

_{Wouldn't be the first time I walked it.} _Matthew chuckles from the driver's position.

Mike grumbles in the commander's seat while looking around. _{Hey, where are we going? This isn't the way to the firing range.} _

_{I saw something this morning during my flight with Ryan. We're gonna go check it out, then we'll head to the range. Do me a favor and traverse the turret to the rear.}_

_{You got it, bossman.} _

Inside the turret, Mike grabbed the commander's override handle for the traverse and pushed the button off to the side, watching the azimuth scale until the gun is pointed to the rear of the tank.

_{Alright, I got the gun turned around. Now what?}_

_{Hold onto something, this next bit is a rough motherfucker.}_

As if to confirm what Matthew said, seconds later the Chieftain tilted violently to one side, then flattened out before it started rocking back and forth as it charged over the rough terrain.

Several minutes later Matthew slowed the heavy vehicle down as he prepared to turn off the road, into the charred remnants of the thicket at the base of the cliff. Most of the little trees being no thicker than ten inches in diameter, and no taller than fifteen feet.

_{You alright back there?} _

_{Stop the ride, this nigga wants off…} _Mike groaned in response, sounding disoriented and a little sick.

_{Mike you better not puke in my tank!} _

_{I'm just fuckin' with you, I'm fine. We almost there yet?} _Mike chuckled.

Matthew sighed over the intercom as he responded. _{Yeah. We've just gotta flatten some toothpicks and we'll be there.} _

_{Aight. Whenever you're ready.} _

In response, Matthew picked up speed slightly and turned off the road, almost instantly beginning to knock over and crush the blackened trees under the treads.

After only about fifty yards of crushing the burnt trees, Matthew slowed the tank to a stop, staring through his center driver's periscope at the large cave entrance, which was anything but. Recessed into the limestone cliff roughly ten feet were a pair of Marble columns, both flanking a pair of large marble doors, easily able to fit the Chieftain with plenty of room to spare.

_{Yo, Mike . . . You seeing what I'm seeing?} _

_{ . . . Yeah. If that's what I think it is…} _

_{Dude, that looks exactly like the fucking pictures of that Gate that popped up in Ginza.}_

_{Well . . . What do we do? Call the National Guard?} _

_{FUCK NO! We're exploring this shit on our own!} _Matthew yelled, making Mike wince at his volume.

_{And what if there's a whole army on the other side?}_

_{THEN we'll call the National Guard.} _

_{Nigga, you better not get our asses killed.} Mike groaned._

_{I won't. Button up and traverse the gun to the front.}_

_{Alright man… I still don't know about this though…} _

_{How about this. We get through the gate, and there's no army? We'll do some prospecting. We find gold or some other expensive metal? We'll split the profits.} _Matthew negotiated, idling the engine as the turret traversed and the large marble doors silently opened.

Mike sat in the commander's seat indecisively for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head before clicking his microphone rearward. _{You've got a deal my man. Let's fucking do this.} _

Matthew grinned as the doors to the gate fully opened. Reaching over, he turned on all the lights on the tank, including the large searchlight, and took a deep breath before depressing the gas pedal, starting the tank forward with a slight lurch.

Within seconds the Chieftain had rumbled into the darkness, and the taillights faded from sight, leaving the desolate landscape quiet once again.

* * *

_{Jesus Christ, how far does this thing go?} _Mike asked, staring through the vision blocks in his cupola at the endless sea of black.

_{I don't know, but I think I see something up ahead.}_

Looking ahead, both of them easily could see a literal light at the end of the tunnel, and as Matthew slowed the Chieftain down it became increasingly clear that not all was well. The light was distorted and warped, looking almost like stained glass or…

_{Ice?}_

Matthew raised his hatch and swung it off to the side, nearly instantly getting a blast of frigid air that rushed into his compartment, making him shiver.

_{Holy hell it's cold!}_

_{I guess that is ice then. What should we do?}_

_{. . . Load the main gun I guess. Let's try to blast through.}_

* * *

At the base of a wooded hill, a small earthen house sat covered in several inches of snow. The door swung open as its only occupant, a female dark elf clad in animal furs, emerged with a bow in hand and a quiver on her back. She closed the woven door and secured it in place with a log at the base, prior to setting out through the snow, slowly and quietly working her way uphill with an arrow nocked in her bow.

'_One. I only need one.' _She thought, pausing at a set of tracks in the snow and briefly examining them. She shook her head a few moments later, standing up and continuing uphill.

Moments later, a sound akin to a thunder clap broke the eerie silence, making the nearby birds take flight. The huntress flinched and kneeled down, nervously scanning her surroundings before taking a deep breath and standing back up, continuing her trek uphill.

'_Simply a tree bursting.' _She told herself, continuing towards the base of the ice-laden cliffs, where she knew the wild grazing animals often bed down.

Not even a hundred yards from where she heard the last thunder-like sound, the sound happened again, this time louder. She flinched again, but shook her head slightly and continued on, following multiple sets of much fresher tracks up to the stepped, bald plateau.

Creeping up onto the summit she found the ground churned up from dozens of the grass-eaters, but none of the animals were to be seen. The huntress merely sighed and continued along the flats, watching the forest to her left, only occasionally glancing at the icy cliffs to her right.

Another couple hundred yards, and the noise broke the silence again, loud enough to ring her ears this time. She dropped to the ground and started looking around, her eyes settling on the frozen-over entrance to a cave, which had three perfectly round holes in the heavily cracked ice.

Then, she became aware of a loud growling coming from inside the cave, one unlike any noise she'd ever heard before. The noise increased in volume as she stood up, and she took a nervous step backwards before a gigantic beast came crashing out of the cave entrance. Its head and long snout searched the steppe off to its right when it stopped just outside the cave, then turned to look at her. Taking another hasty step back, her feet slid out from underneath her on the thin crust of ice, depositing her on her backside as the beast turned its entire body towards her.

Staring wide-eyed in sheer terror at the gigantic being, the huntress noted how the ground shook whenever the beast moved its body. How it kept its full attention on her, knowing fully it was the largest animal around. With its oddly shaped head she could tell the beast had a thick skin, far too thick for her bow and arrow to have a hope of doing more than irritating it.

Then, inexplicably the beast started backing off, turning around and moving headfirst back into its den.

Knowing better than to corner a large animal, the huntress cautiously backed off, then moved off to hunt somewhere else.

* * *

Inside the dark of the tunnel, the Chieftain surged back through the darkness while its occupants reflected on the sighting of the elf.

_{Man did you see the look on her face? She was terrified!} _Mike chuckled, moving from the gunner's seat to the commander's seat.

_{Yeah, she was. I don't think she'll be coming back for a while.} _Matthew responded, his voice monotone. _{You saw what the terrain was like, right?} _

_{Yeah. Not exactly tank country I'd say. Woods, snow, ice. The hills looked kinda steep.}_

_{My thoughts exactly. I think we'll take the Wiesel next time, park it by the cave and move on foot.}_

_{Say WHAT!? Have you lost yo damn mind?! We don't know what kind of things are out there that'll eat us!} _

_{Relax. I'll take my Win Mag and a PDW. We'll be fine.}_

Mike sighed and shook his head. _{Fine. I'm not gonna be back for a while though. I originally came up here to tell you I'm getting more hours at work, so I won't be able to volunteer as much.} _

_{That's okay. Ryan Green said he'd help keep things up and running.} _

The rest of the ride through the gate was done in silence between the two as both thought about what they had seen on the other side. An elf was certainly an interesting first contact, and given her garb of animal skins, as well as the bow and arrows she was carrying, it was evident that she was a hunter. If not, then she was likely she was some form of scout.

If the latter was true, then she'd likely tell her superiors of the sighting, and the second visit likely wouldn't be as pleasant.

Regardless, the opportunity to explore a new land couldn't, and wouldn't, be neglected.

* * *

The following day, Matthew was up before the sun. After a hearty breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and bacon, he set about retrieving his equipment. A small backpack full of some survival necessities, warm winter clothes, a venerable Ruger Redhawk, and his hunting rifle, a custom .300 Winchester Magnum.

Once he had everything gathered, the equipment was carried out to the Wiesel AWC, and thoroughly strapped to the outside of the tankette in the pre-dawn light.

By the time the sun was starting to crest the ridge, the little vehicle was making its way through the thicket at the base of the limestone cliff, following the path cleared the previous day by the heavier Chieftain.

In minutes Matthew was driving at full speed through the tunnel between the two gates, his mind perusing over the possibilities of this new land. Gold was always a possibility. New hunting opportunities were an interesting prospect, but getting the lay of the land came first.

If there were soldiers on the other side waiting for him, the unarmed tankette could in theory still fight back, but that would be a last resort. The Empire behind the gate in Japan had been hostile, but after a while things had reached a stalemate.

Of course, the JSDF was also an organized military. He was just one man, never mind the volunteers that helped him keep his collection in excellent condition.

He quickly kicked that thought to the curb after spotting the telltale light of the cave entrance approaching, and slowed the Wiesel down, slowly creeping out of the cave and parking in the snow.

The bright light he had seen on approach was rather misleading. The sliver of a moon was still high above, casting a very faint silver glow down on the land, and only after turning the lights off did Matthew realize how dark it really was, sitting in the darkness for a couple minutes to let his eyes adjust before finally opening his hatch, hearing a faint hiss and feeling the altitude change in his ears before equalizing the pressure.

He quickly clambered out of the driver's seat and stood atop the steel as he donned his snow camouflage winter clothes, including a white balaclava and white stocking cap, nervously glancing around occasionally while he retrieved his rifle and backpack, the latter having been stuffed with as much extra ammunition as it could hold. The .44 Magnum revolver was already on his belt in a holster, so very little change was needed there as he shut the open hatch and jumped off, sinking up to his calves in layered snow and ice.

'_Should've brought snowshoes or cross-country skis. Oh well, next time.' _

He took one last glance around before starting to walk in the direction the elf had come from, following her tracks in the snow while cautiously watching the woods to his right, keeping the cliff to his left until the elf's tracks came down from the top of the plateau, using a small trail between towering rock faces. It was a slippery climb, but upon reaching the top of the trail he looked around to find the dim shapes of what looked like small deer asleep in the snow. Only a couple were awake, and they seemed to be acting as sentries of sorts.

Of course, with the amount of slipping, falling, and quiet cursing he had done on the way up, they knew he was there _somewhere_, but their night vision must not have been very good, because several times they looked directly at him, only to look away a moment later.

With no real need or desire to kill one of the creatures, he slowly and carefully made his way around the edge of the plateau, stopping every time one of the animals looked at him, only to continue once it looked away.

The entire ordeal of stopping and starting again lasted a whole half hour, and upon reaching the opposite side he found the elf's tracks again, following them down a much wider path down into the pine forest. Having been raised at high altitude his entire life, the trek was not much of a challenge, and in all reality wasn't much different from the terrain of his property.

Matthew tracked the elf all the way back to an earthen hut tucked into a patch of dense foliage, and noted the skins stretched out nearby. All were small, belonging to animals that couldn't have been any larger than a dog. None were new by any means, and judging from the tracks in the snow, the elf had returned home unsuccessfully, if the dragging of her feet was any indication.

He stiffened up when he heard a mumbling and a groan inside, then relaxed when the noise stopped, only to become more concerned when the occupant made a sound akin to an uncomfortable whimper.

'_Wait a minute, old hides. There's nothing new. Could it be that she's starving?' _He thought to himself, further examining the hides. Any tracks around them had long since been covered by snow, and every bit of fat or meat on them had long since been picked off, either by wild animals or by the elf. What's more, was that there wasn't any sort of stockpiled meat. The snow would keep a dead animal preserved, but there was nothing outside.

Matthew faced the issue head-on with a new resolve to help the elf he'd only seen once before, and started backtracking towards the plateau.

Half an hour later, the loud crack of a rifle broke the silence of the night.

* * *

Come morning, the elf awoke slowly, clutching her stomach in discomfort as she sat up. She quickly set about getting ready for the morning hunt, putting on her skins and checking her bow before grabbing her quiver.

'_I must kill one today.'_ She told herself, the thought only being reinforced by her empty stomach knotting up more.

She slowly pushed open the woven door of her hut, and immediately froze in the doorway, staring at the sight before her.

Mere yards from her door was a figure clad in white, human or elf she couldn't tell, but they had their back to her, and were working on butchering a male grass eater. The animal was hanging by a rope tied to its antlers, and they had already evidently gutted it.

That's not what surprised her though. What surprised her was that the animal was hanging from a protrusion on the back of a beast, similar to the one she had seen the previous day, though much smaller. Possibly one of its young?

Closing her eyes and shaking her head she hoped it was just her mind playing tricks with her, but when she opened her eyes she found that it was still there, with the white-clad figure still calmly working on removing the hide from the grass-eater. They pulled the hide off the side, and moved around the back of it before finally noticing her. She noticed how the figure flinched when they saw her, staring at her with blue eyes for a moment before slightly bowing to her and setting back about their business.

"Who are you?" She asked, causing the person to stop and tilt their head. Had they not heard her? Or was this person and their beast from another land? She knew there were nomads that traveled wherever they pleased, ignoring kingdom boundaries, but in all her years she'd never seen a beast like the one in front of her.

The person pulled down their face cover, and it was her turn to flinch, quickly nocking an arrow in her bow and drawing the string back. Humans and Dark Elves in Eyvindara had been on each other's bad side for decades. They rarely interacted outside of trading inside towns, but when they did the common result was the elves being killed, often having their belongings pillaged afterwards.

The human's eyes widened and he stabbed the dagger he was holding into the grass-eater's ribs, holding up his empty hands and saying something in a strange language she'd never heard before.

'_Oh great. We don't speak the same language.' _

Slowly and cautiously, she lowered her bow and eased the string forward, watching him as he slowly lowered his hands, saying something again in his strange language. Then her stomach growled at her, and the human motioned towards the grass-eater, then towards her, making a motion like he was handing her something.

Then she realized what he was trying to say.

'_This human wants to give me part of his grass-eater? This must be a trick! But… what if it's not a trick…?' _

She watched the man walk over to the animal and pull the dagger out of its ribs, quickly starting to cut at one of the hindquarters until the joint was visible. Then he twisted the hindquarters around and gave it a rough pull, followed by a loud crack. He lifted the separated hindquarter up and placed his dagger on his belt before slowly walking towards a fire he had burning nearby, struggling slightly with the spit he had set up over it.

The elven huntress sighed and walked over, taking the meat from him before properly securing it to the spit.

While she attended the hindquarter over the fire she watched as he cut down the grass-eater, then proceeded to carry it over by her door, stuffing snow and ice in the chest cavity before piling more snow on top of it.

No words were spoken after he finished covering over the grass-eater and sat down, laying an odd-looking staff across his lap while watching the flames flicker. She could tell he had a distant look in his eyes, and sat there turning the spit while watching him, looking over his sharp features and his cleanly-trimmed black hair. Eventually she mustered up the courage to speak again, and straightened up, placing her hand on her chest.

* * *

"Roshia."

Upon hearing her voice Matthew was withdrawn from his thoughts. He straightened up and looked at the elf, seeing her with her hand on her chest as she repeated herself, patting her chest.

He smiled and put his hand on his chest, grateful that the motion seemed to be universal. "Matthew."

Her eyes nearly instantly lit up with joy as she repeated his name, pointing at him. In return he nodded enthusiastically and did the same with her name.

'_I feel like a caveman.' _He mentally chuckled before she pointed to the tankette with an inquisitive gaze.

He furrowed his brow for a moment, then realized she was asking the name of the vehicle, thinking it of some sort of animal.

"Wiesel." He replied, watching her stare at him in surprise before breaking into a giggling fit. He figured it was probably something that meant something else in her language, and leaned forward, continuing to turn the spit with the meat on it.

During the time that it took for the meat to cook they took turns learning random words of each other's languages, often laughing at how bad the other butchered the pronunciation. Everything was fine and dandy.

Until it wasn't.

Just as they were getting ready to eat the food, six men rode up on horseback, stopping a short distance away. Roshia jumped to her feet and made a move for her bow, only to find another two standing by the Wiesel, one with her bow in hand.

Matthew had seen enough movies and had enough knowledge of ambushes to know that these new arrivals weren't just there to talk. He checked between them and the hut, then raised his rifle to the low-ready while putting himself between the men on horseback and Roshia.

The rider with the most armor immediately started yelling at him, and he flipped the safety off the rifle, opening the bolt just enough to check for a round in the chamber before closing it again. At his silence, the rider that had been previously yelling at Matthew drew the sword on his hip, dismounting from his horse.

Matthew remained calm, pointing the rifle directly at the dismounted rider with a stone-cold glare as his finger brushed the trigger, ready to send the round on its way. The sudden lack of weight on his left hip caused him to remove his eyes from the rider just long enough to see Roshia standing beside him with his knife in hand. It was then that the rider made his move, running at Matthew with a war cry, cocking his arm back to swing the broadsword.

Matthew nearly instantly snapped his gaze back to his target and pulled the trigger, completely unphased by the loud report of the rifle as he quickly rolled the bolt and extracted the empty casing, then slammed the bolt forward, looking around while the bandit crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut.

"WHO'S NEXT!"

* * *

In the aftermath of the fight Roshia stood shocked while the man that had saved her went from bandit to bandit. She stared at him as he searched their pockets and their mounts, having tied the very healthy looking horses to the nearby trees. She had figured the beast that he called 'Wiesel' would do something once his staff dispatched the first bandit, but it kept sleeping throughout the entire fight, not even acknowledging the loud noises that hurt her ears. She figured it was probably paying attention during the entire fight, and knew that its master was more than capable of winning.

Before long, the human had stripped the deceased bandits of anything moderately useful, and buried their bodies in the permafrost a small distance from her hut.

Following that, he had placed the breastplates by the fire along with the swords, and had taken the rest of their pillaged valuables and spread them out among the horses before tying the steeds together. After eating the meat they had cooked, she quickly retrieved all that she wanted to sell and loaded up the other four horses, watching him after he whistled at her. He easily swung up onto the lead horse with three others tied to it.

Despite what had just happened, he seemed incredibly relaxed, happy even, and it slightly unnerved her as she swung up onto her steed, feeling much better now that she had eaten.

Regardless, she couldn't shake the gnawing feeling that something was awry, and kept her bow laid across her lap as they set out.

The human who had called himself 'Matthew' was likely unaware of the law he was breaking as they both rode out of the woods onto a road, but the two weren't supposed to travel together. The king had mandated such before his death years prior, and after his son had taken the throne, the law had since been enforced with an iron fist.

She noticed as they rode that he, too, had his weapon laid across his lap. That oddly shaped staff that could kill without touching. She knew it had to be magic, but ever since the annexation of the elven mage school in her youth, many had outright given up on learning magic and simply resorted to cold steel for fighting. She knew some spells and incantations, but most of them were hardly practical for fighting and were often difficult to perform correctly.

This man however, controlled magic like it was second nature. The odd gold-colored objects that his staff ejected every time it was used were no doubt catalysts of some sort, and he seemed to carry a large amount of them, all of which with bronze-colored crystals in the end. Was he a warrior mage of some sort? Or better yet, was he one of the revered warrior monks from Faywald, who had abandoned his training?

Before she could continue her thought, he whistled a short chirp at her, holding his hand out behind him. She momentarily wondered why, but her inquiry was quickly silenced when she noticed the four wagons ahead. Stationary.

Matthew waved her up beside him and tied the three other horses he had to her horse, then spurred the horse and took off at a full gallop.

She followed at a distance and watched as three bandits on horseback rounded from the wagons and rode towards him, drawing swords.

Instead of raising his staff like she had expected, he grabbed the odd-shaped object from his right hip and turned his mount slightly before pointing it at them, much like he had with his staff.

The same sound as his staff had made clapped once, making his horse rear up, and the noise sounded four more times before he rode out of sight behind the wagons, leaving the three bandits laying motionless on the road while their mounts stamped around.

The sound of his staff clapped once more, and he rode back into view a moment later, waving her over.

Nervously, she rode forward with the seven horses stretched out behind her, watching him dismount and check each of the bandits, pocketing their gold and dragging them to the roadside. Once he had looted the bandits he walked around the wagons to where the bandits had taken the occupants.

Laid out in the snow on the roadside were eight merchants and their children, staining the snow underneath them red while the human kneeled by a survivor, his face mask pulled down.

The woman cowered in fear against the wagon wheel, dressed in mere rags and shivering while she stared at him.

Roshia dismounted and tied off her horse to one of the wagons, then walked over and nudged him to the side, kneeling down in front of the woman and watching the brown rabbit's ears atop her head perk up a little.

"Are you hurt?" The elf asked, earning a head shake in return.

"N-no, I-I'm unharmed."

"Would you like to come with us? We're going to trade in Carigill."

"Th-that's where we were going. Are you and the human traveling together?"

Roshia extended her hand to the woman after standing up. "I suppose we are. He isn't from around here though."

As the bunny girl reached out and grabbed the elf's hand she furrowed her brow. "He's not?"

"No, he doesn't even speak the same language as us. I've never heard his language before."

As the two hauled themselves onto Roshia's horse, Matthew pulled his face mask up and finished tying some bags of goods from the caravan to his horse. Roshia watched him while he took the strange object off his hip and took five of the strange gold catalysts out of it, putting them in a pouch inside his tunic before putting five more in the object and placing it back on his hip. He placed one more catalyst in his staff before nodding at the two, continuing down the road with them close behind.

* * *

With Roshia and the bunny girl behind him, Matthew followed the well-drawn map he'd nicked from one of the first bandits. It said that there was a town somewhere up ahead, but he knew that without any way of properly measuring distance, it could be awhile until they actually reached the town.

In the meantime, he listened to Roshia and the rabbit-eared woman talk to each other, trying and failing to make any sense of their language.

There was no purpose in listening to them, that he knew, but it distracted him from what he had seen at the caravan. The bandits hadn't spared anybody, not even the children. The rabbit-eared woman was very lucky to be alive, and he figured she'd be grateful that he killed the bandit that had grabbed her, knocked her onto her knees, and was getting ready to chop her head off when Matthew put an end to him. Instead, she seemed just as terrified of him as she had been of the bandit. Then again, he had killed him before her very eyes.

Then there was the fact that all the bandits he'd encountered today had been human. Now he knew that there was more than just humans and elves, with a couple of the dead merchants being what looked like orcs of some sort, and a couple had animal ears.

"Jesus… what have I gotten myself into…?" He yawned, watching the road in front of him as the wind kicked up, blowing snow across the open, flat valley floor. He squinted in an effort to try and keep the snow out of his eyes, then gave up and reached into his backpack, putting on a pair of goggles he'd had in the Wiesel.

The wind continued to whip across the plain during the entire ride to the town. He couldn't tell what the name of the town was, but when they arrived the first thing he did was get rid of most of the horses, saving only three with all the goods they had.

Then, he was clueless as to where to go, until Roshia called his name and waved him along, riding through the streets to a stone building. They tied their horses up out front and untied some of the goods they had, carrying them inside as what could almost be considered a team.

The second Matthew stepped through the threshold, everyone inside went silent, staring at him until Roshia said something. Then they went about their business as the trio walked over to a room in the far corner.

Roshia knocked firmly on the door, and a vision slit opened a moment later, the occupant of the room and Roshia having a brief exchange before the slit was closed and the door opened. The elf carried what she had grabbed inside, then took what Matthew had brought, shaking her head at him when he started to go inside. He got the message pretty quickly and nodded, walking out to guard the horses. Once the door to the room Roshia and the rabbit-woman had gone into closed, the main room went dead silent again as he walked through it, and he quickly realized why as he walked out the door into the cold.

He had been the only human in the building.

Shaking that thought out of his mind, he pulled his balaclava back over his face and moved the ESS goggles back over his eyes, standing by the hitching post with his back against the wall. He held his rifle in his hands while he watched the townsfolk pass, most of them steering clear of him and watching from a distance.

After a few minutes Roshia walked out to the horses and retrieved the last of the goods before disappearing back inside, leaving Matthew's horse without any extra baggage on it. With a bit of internal debating put behind him, he untied his mount and climbed into the saddle, starting through the narrow streets of the town with his rifle across his lap. Everywhere he went, both humans and other types of people stared at him, most with curiosity, but others with clear looks of hatred.

'_I guess outsiders aren't always completely welcomed here.' _

When the housing began to look more run-down he stopped the horse and turned around, riding back past the building that Roshia and the rabbit-woman had gone into.

From slightly fogged windows and the sides of the street he could feel the eyes of dozens of people on him, but not a word was spoken among any of them while he slowly rode out of town, heading back up the road in the direction of Roshia's hut.

The frozen road as practically nothing but a well-worn depression in the land, but it was enough to keep him on track until he passed the sacked caravan, with the open ground on either side of the road that stretched out for at least a half mile. The towering sparse pines stood beyond the snow-covered flats, swaying with every breeze in such a way that it made them look like they were slow dancing to some unheard tune. Jutting above the pines and firs, basalt cliffs held an unseen vigilance to everything that happened between them, their tops bald and flat.

In a way, the terrain reminded him of Montana, yet it was completely different.

One lone sapling of a Fir tree along the road served as a trail marker to the earthen hut tucked way back in the woods. Simple yet effective.

Upon his arrival he tied up the horse and checked the Wiesel, ensuring all was ready in case he needed to use it to make a quick getaway. Then, he meanered over to the small pile or armor and weapons and picked a few souvenirs out of it. A short sword with a scabbard, a heavy shield, and a helmet that caught his eye. All of which were promptly strapped to the Wiesel, and he went about preparing to leave, putting his gear inside the small vehicle and starting the engine to warm it up.

While the cold Diesel engine warmed up, he pulled a gold pouch out of his jacket pocket and cinched it tight, throwing it so it landed in front of Roshia's door, a token of thanks for her hospitality.

'_I'll be back.' _

With a grin he climbed down into the hatch and revved the engine, spinning the tankette on one track before beginning to claw up the snowy slope.

Following the partially filled-in tracks from when he had driven the small vehicle down to the hut, he easily found the Gate and drove into it, bound for home.


End file.
